Monday, January 30, 2006

A Fool for Lesser Things

The weekend was proof that foul weather is never going to stand in the way of my fun.

Our trio made the pilgrimage to Ogden Friday despite hazardous road conditions, but the blizzard was no match for the front-wheel-drive Cadillac, even when we could hardly see the reflector poles and had to ride the noise strip at ten miles an hour up Echo Canyon just to stay on the road. We came home with a pair of perfect jeans (Mom has all the luck), the microsuede duvet I’ve been stalking since October, and – almost – a $300 mahogany leather club chair Mom and I became totally enamored with in the span of five seconds. I decided against it for reasons I won’t admit here (hint: cats and leather don’t mix, but if things keep going the way they are I might soon stitch up two chic cat-hide toss pillows to grace future leather furniture*), but now I have the furniture virus so there’s more shopping on the horizon. We had lunch at Ruby River and I found the ideal black frame at Sears for three of my favorite San Diego photographs by Lenny. Good Lord, I miss the beach.

Saturday Mr. Goodwrench and I braved yet another blizzard to get to CAKE in Salt Lake City and had a marvelous time. We stopped in for all the meat we could handle at Trolley Square’s Rodizio Grill (served by an army of enthusiastic men with two-foot skewers and razor-sharp cleavers), along with fried bananas and grilled pineapple imported directly from heaven. But just for future reference: if I was you and I happened to be at Rodizio on my birthday, I wouldn’t advertise the fact that it was my birthday. I just wouldn’t do it.

The Depot is still in the charmingly disorganized stages of early enterprise, and is happily smoke-free. Seating is extremely limited, and instead of sharing (you people should remember this from Kindergarten), groups would stake out campsites and jealously guard the uncomfortable bar stools lining the walls, leaving the most obese or repellent member of their clique at the post at all times to snarl at anyone who so much as set half a cheek down for two seconds. Which was fine, because by the time CAKE came out I had completely forgotten I was wearing boots with four-inch heels (so sue me, there were seat numbers on the tickets, and I’d wear them again even knowing what I know now). I paid dearly the next day, but as Grandma used to quote from the dialogue concerning a shoe-related injury in Little Women, “But, dear me, let us be elegant or die!”

It was also hot on the dance floor, causing most people to tie the sleeves of sweaters and jackets around their waists early on. At one point I looked around and noticed a tall bearded man just in front of us who was still wearing a blue quilted jacket and ratty fedora (or was it a trucker cap?), and I thought, “I’ll take my coat off when that guy does.” I lost track of him and finally tied my black wool coat around my waist like everybody else, only to notice later that as CAKE took the stage, John McCrea was doffing the aforementioned outerwear. He is surprisingly tall compared to inebriated Utahans.

CAKE was great, and the crowd was mellow (aside from that horrid stool stinginess). We got the bonus Buck Owens cover but we didn’t get Lenny’s theme song, “Satan is my Motor,” so I was .005% disappointed. I’d still go again every night this week if it were an option, inclement weather or not.

I have a lot of crushes on any given day (Monday, January 30th, 2006: Jack Johnson, Daniel Craig, Clinton Kelly, and the Honda Ridgeline) but I’ve had a crush on Vince DiFiore since he was a guest soloist at a college jazz festival I attended around a decade ago, shortly after “The Distance” put CAKE on the pop radar. And I’ve never even gotten an honest good look at his face.

Obviously, there’s CAKE on my iPod, keeping company with Enya, Bare Naked Ladies, Chick Corea, Jack Johnson, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Sublime, Itzhak Perlman, Billy Joel, some movie soundtracks (no Disney today, I swear!), and Rascal Flatts. What a hodgepodge. It’s my study soundtrack. It’s amazing how bored you can get just reading more about what you do at work every day.

Is “exceedence” a word, or does the E.P.A. just like baiting me?

Jeff called the plant’s resident winter-white weasel “cute as a bug’s ear” today. This from the man who once stomped a thumb-sized mouse right in front of me. Of course, the weasel was carrying the late mouse’s late cousin, so that might explain Jeff’s sudden affection for a rodent.

*I don’t know if it’s a seasonal thing or what, but the cats are driving me crazy. They require constant diversion or they develop the potential to make total pests of themselves. Good thing a major diversion for cats is sleeping. Just for the record, I would never really skin them. But if they don’t stop shedding, I may shave them bald.

4 Comments:

If it helps to fuel your indignation any, the E.P.A. did misspell it. Also, I can't look at it without wanting to add the words "Clearwater Revival" after it (which in this instance is oddly appropriate).

whichever way you spell it, you don't want too many of them or you're all in the shit.sort of the same with cats...however they are easy to peel and pillows are more useful than them..get a few joined together as a bedspread